Versus Priest

This is a guide to playing matches Versus Priest class Heroes. In this page, you will find everything from combat strategies, counters and workarounds to playing against a Priest, in order to improve your chances to come out with a win!

In order to compete well versus an experienced Priest, it is essential to know what cards they may have in their Deck to use against you. Knowing all of the cards is the ultimate goal, but first let’s take a look at some of the most popular cards and ones that may present you problems during battle.

Shadow Word: Pain - This card is one of the Priests two single target removal cards, that can remove any minion that has three or less attack. Keep in mind that this can work on some bigger minions such as the Gurubashi Berserker, so you want to make them use Shadow Word: Pain on your smaller minions first, so you should test the waters with your smaller minions first before playing minions that have high health and low attack. The perfect counter to this card is any minion with exactly four attack points.

Shadow Word: Death - This card is the Priests second single target removal card. When used it will kill any minion that has an attack value of 5 or higher, keep in mind that if a Priest hasn't used this card thus far in a match, it is probably either still in their deck or in their hand. Again, the perfect counter would be a minion with 4 attack, however if you only have multiple minions with higher than 5 attack, you should play the weakest ones first to see if they remove it, if they do then you can play your bigger one on the next turn.

Dark Cultist - Dark Cultist both has good stats and a great deathrattle. It has three attack and four health for three mana. When it dies, it gives a friendly minion plus three health. It is best to kill it when your opponent has no other minions on the board.

Northshire Cleric - The Northshire Cleric is a minion that will give the Priest a card every time they, or you, heal a minion whilst it is on the board. Sometimes this card is played on turn one as it only costs one mana, if it is, you want to play a minion that does at least 3 damage so you can kill it without them being able to heal it. Later in the game, they will play it right before they heal a minion so that they gain value from the card immediately, this is a high priority card that you should remove or silence as they can potentially gain a lot of value from this one card if left alone.

Lightspawn - The Lightspawn is a dangerous minion that you should try to remove from the board as quickly as possible. The reason this minion is so dangerous is because it's Attack will always equal its Health. The best move against this minion is to Silence it, if you leave it on the board and they use other cards such as Divine Spirit to increase its health, it can become an extremely strong minion and could potentially kill your Hero by itself.

Inner Fire - Inner Fire converts a minion's Attack into its Health. Because of this card, some priests use minions with high health and low attack such as the Mogu'shan Warden which has 7 Health, 1 Attack. They will play these minions on the board to see what you do, and if you ignore them on the next turn they will Inner Fire them and then attack for huge damage. If you cannot kill one of these minions on a given turn, try to at least damage them as much as possible, this way they will have less attack if they heal and Inner Fire them.

Holy Nova - The Priests main AoE Spell. It will do two damage to all of your minions, and heals all of their minions and themself for two at the same time. This can be expected in a match beyond turn five and a Priest will try to kill at least two to three of your minions, or try to heal two or three of theirs when using it. Keep an eye on your opponent’s minions, if they have quite a few damaged minions on the board, you can expect them to Holy Nova soon, and also they may play the Northshire Cleric before doing it which can draw them a lot of cards. When you see a Priest with multiple damaged minions, you should try your best to kill as many of them as possible before they Holy Nova.

As stated above, to compete with experienced Priest players, it is essential to at least know all of the possible Priest Cards.

At the start of a match against a Priest, take note of what they do on their first two turns, if they skip the first turn you can assume that they will probably play a two mana minion on their second turn, or Shadow Word: Pain.

If possible, make use of your Hero Powers as much as possible on these early turns, as the Priest cannot do the same because their Hero Power doesn't have much effect in the early turn, however if you are a Hunter, using your Hero Power will be nullified in this portion of the game as they will just heal back the damage you do.

If they eventually play a Northshire Cleric, be sure to kill or silence her as soon as you can, as she can quickly snowball into a huge card advantage for them, which would give them a lot more options for strategies to use to counter the cards you are playing.

During the mid-game is where you want to start having them use their Shadow Word: Deaths on medium minions, so that you can still have your biggest minions survive until the late game. If you can't kill one of the Priests minions on a turn, don't leave them damaged as they will simply just heal them back up, use your minions to directly attack the Priest in these situations.

If the game escalates into a long battle and you find yourself in the end game, try to hold onto your biggest minion until the last possible moment, because around this portion of the game you can expect them to use Mind Control, which will steal your minion - if they do this to you, you do not want it to be your biggest minion as this can often have a game losing effect on you.

A Priest has some Spell cards that make them unique to the other classes, these cards essentially will make use of your cards against you. Some of these spells you should be aware of, below you will find a list of these cards and how to prepare for them.

Mind Control - This is the big end game card that you can expect to see when up against some Priests, it will steal one of the minions you have on the board and put it on their side of the board. Because of this card, in a late game against a Priest things become a bit tricky, you need to keep in mind that any one of your minions could essentially switch sides, and most likely this will be your strongest minion.

Also keep in mind that if the opposing Priest does this, they won't be able to attack with your minion on the same turn, and they won't be able to do anything else that turn either. This you can work around, if you are controlling the game and on the way to a win, do not play a big minion that could present problems, just play what you have on the board and if they then steal a minion, then play your big card.

Mind Games - Mind Games is a very random card and one that could potentially cause big problems in a match, there is not really any counter to this card, it spawns a random minion from your deck onto the Priests side of the board. Some players have had a Ragnaros The Firelord as early as turn three because of this card, and when this happens, you just have to try to remove it as quickly as possible.

Thoughtsteal - This card will create copies of two cards from your deck and put them into your opponents deck. When they play this card, you have to keep in mind what cards you have in your deck as two of them will be used against you, try to spot if your enemy is setting up minions to use a spell that is from your deck, if they are then try to work around it.

Shadow Madness - This card lets the Priest control one of your minions for one turn if it has an attack of three or less. You really need to keep this card in mind as it can give the Priest big value when used correctly, they will often use it to control one of your minions to attack one of your other minions, killing each other. Try to not play two minions on the board that could kill each other.

Another thing to keep in mind is that if one of these minions has a Deathrattle, the result from it will remain theirs, so if they Shadow Madness a Harvest Golem from you, and it dies on their side, the Damaged Golem it spawns after dying will remain theirs.